Foreclosures Up 15% In 2009

by Dollars and Sense

This is hardly surprising. One out of every five homeowners owe more than their houses are worth. The real unemployment rate is over 16% and climbing. And banks are refusing to refinance sour loans, even with $50 billion from the Obama Administration. You can't unpop a bubble.

From the wires:

The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15 percent in the first half of the year as more people lost their jobs and were unable to pay their monthly mortgage bills.

The mushrooming foreclosure crisis affected more than 1.5 million homes in the first six months of the year, according to a report released Thursday by foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc.

The data show that, despite the Obama administration's plan to encourage the lending industry to prevent foreclosures by handing out $50 billion in subsidies, America's housing woes continue to spread. Experts don't expect foreclosures to peak until the middle of next year.

Foreclosure filings rose more than 33 percent in June compared with the same month last year and were up nearly 5 percent from May, RealtyTrac said.

"Despite all the efforts to date, we clearly haven't got a handle on how to address the situation," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's senior vice president for marketing.

More than 336,000 households received at least one foreclosure-related notice in June, according to the foreclosure listing firm's report. That works out to one in every 380 U.S. homes.

It was the fourth-straight month in which more than 300,000 households receiving a foreclosure filing, which includes default notices and several other legal notices that homeowners receive before they finally lose their homes. Banks repossessed more than 79,000 homes in June, up from about 65,000 a month earlier.

--d.f.

Labels: Daniel Fireside, foreclosures, homeownership, real estate market

 

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7/16/2009 12:14:00 PM